Talk:History

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2018 and 17 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): S.glo1.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:31, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

A deeply unsatisfactory article

History is one of the major academic disciplines with long traditions and various longstanding philosophical disputes. This article is absolutely amateurish, a hodge-podge of non-connected individual points and sheer diletantism. Surely we can do better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.130.160.157 (talk) 20:43, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Probably true; it's an article I seldom visit despite having it in my watchlist. Articles on specific histories are interesting to me, while an article on history as a field is less so. Perhaps what's missing is a proper section on the field's, er... history. UpdateNerd (talk) 07:57, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

As a professional historian myself, I think it's pretty good. It covers lots of themes that interest actual historians. Rjensen (talk) 08:58, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I would agree, it is not perfect, but a very useful summation of the craft. Profcates (talk) 02:11, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

I believe some of the philosophical debate can be found in the Historiography article. I agree that this article is somewhat disjointed and seems partial to perhaps a modernist/empiricist view of history as opposed to for example a post-modernist/post-structuralist view. PCChris23 (talk) 04:02, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: CMN2160C

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2022 and 9 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): ELizaluu (article contribs).

The first sentence is wrong

"History (from Ancient Greek: ἱστορία, romanized: historíā, lit. 'inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation') is the study and the documentation of the past." This preusumed definition of history is not everything that it seems to be. This sentence should actually say instead that history is the comprehensive study of the past using both including archeological and historiographic methods. These definitions are not the same way they appear to be, the first one just reduces the ehole subject to a pitifully constrained definition. History is not just the simple study of historiography. The second definition exposes this fact.

These distinctions should be self evident enough. But the real problem here is that this is somehow still not yet the cases nit yet the case. The whole concepyt that the study of history should be the study of the"recorded" past is litrraly ridiculous! What!? Geological history? What!? Astronomical hidtory!?, archeology? What!?

Are these not historical disciplines as well? Why do you hold the authority of deciding this matter by yourselves? Upon what reason and fact did you judge this absurdity to be true? On what base is it reasonable to assume that the treatment of the whole study of history (and the past) [synonymously] with all it's scrutiny should with all due respect be wholly entrusted to a (as ir is now apparent) pedantic, and also from time to time prejudiced historiographic method and therefore be reduced to ambiguity? History is a empirical science, and it's common sense, usual and mundane sense of the word is adequate enough. These linguistic contortions are ridiculous and insane! Archeology is a part of history, as well. Is the divise between history, archeology and historiography not actually suspicious? Are these divisions and distinctions not artificial as well, are they reall not? Is it not the case? 109.245.37.173 (talk) 11:50, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Section 'Methods' needs refactoring

Just the intro portion of section § Methods before the first subsection is very long on its own, and needs further refactoring into subsections. Perhaps the entire section needs to be condensed, or have content shipped out to Child article|child articles, per WP:Summary style. Mathglot (talk) 05:37, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

What about Her-story?

what about it? 174.6.13.69 (talk) 05:25, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Wrong article, see herstory instead. Dimadick (talk) 21:31, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: HIST 432, International Relations in the 20th Century 2022

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 January 2023 and 9 April 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Anairol (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Anairol (talk) 05:23, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Problems of Independent West African States

At the end of the previous chapter, we discussed the impact of colonial rule in West Africa. This chapter now concentrates on the major challenges African leaders have had to confront since that attainment of self-care-rule. The post-colonial story in West Africa is not very pleasant. Since the 1970s, West African countries have been plagued by severe economic problems. Carl Draymon (talk) 23:08, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

History

Research on how apartheid affected people's lives and how people responded 102.221.95.247 (talk) 15:16, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Define apartheid in three different ways 102.221.95.247 (talk) 15:18, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

I believe that would be a bit more meaningful on a more specialized page. Consider looking at Apartheid and seeing how you can contribute there. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:22, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

@GeogSage 41.113.245.82 (talk) 12:18, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Does it make sense to mention Herodotus as the "father of lies" in the intro?

Seems a weird choice. Barjimoa (talk) 15:33, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Request link edit

Art history links to "history of art" instead of "art history" as it was intended to. I would like to request someone to fix it please. 2001:44C8:402B:1693:8522:C89D:4637:4DDC (talk) 16:37, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

• You got it. Drmies (talk) 16:44, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1k1 December 2023

223.123.108.74 (talk) 11:56, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Liu1126 (talk) 12:38, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@⁦(๑♡⌓♡๑)⁩⁦(๑♡⌓♡๑)⁩⁦(๑♡⌓♡๑)⁩⁦(๑♡⌓♡๑)⁩⁦ᕙ( ͡◉ ͜ ʖ ͡◉)ᕗ⁩⁦ᕦ(ಠ_ಠ)ᕤ⁩ 89.196.15.58 (talk) 03:20, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Community Economic and Social Development II

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 January 2024 and 12 April 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): GondaraHarpreet012, Sunardevendrasum (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by GondaraHarpreet012 (talk) 23:10, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 20 March 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. I know that it just inside the 168 hour timeline (been 165) but (per WP:RMEC) since opposition is unanimous and there has been 7 oppositions, it is almost certain that it will not pass. (non-admin closure) JuniperChill (talk) 17:39, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

---

• History → History (field)
• History (disambiguation) → History

– When people look up the term History, people will probably either look for the academic field or a general history of the world. We have World history as a dab page since it could refer to the field (World history (field)) or a history of human beings. I think moving these articles makes sense in this way. Interstellarity (talk) 20:49, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is covered sufficiently by the hatnote link to Human history. The basic term usually refers to the field, as in the current setup. Dekimasuよ! 21:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. Agree with Dekimasu's reasoning. Also, "History" isn't a field. All other subsets of History are, such as World History, US History, Chinese History etc. History is the overarching process, not a specific field itself. It would be like changing Science to "Science (field)". Vyselink (talk) 21:51, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose, justified primary topic. 162 etc. (talk) 21:56, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
• WP:DABCONCEPT probably applies. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:06, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
• Yeah, for such a generic term a broad-concept article should be much better than introducing extra navigation elements. (Oppose) --Joy (talk) 09:55, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. Good grief. It's so clearly the primary topic that it's painful! -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:40, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is the primary topic. Barjimoa (talk) 14:49, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. Primary topic and category error; history itself is not a field, it is the content on which other fields are built on. Chariotsacha (talk) 16:16, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I'm confused

What is the Methods section supposed to be dedicated to? To me, it seems that it details methods of constructing narratives around historical events that suit the writer's political agenda. Is this really what history is about? Shouldn't history be about fact-finding instead of narrative-crafting? Do I just have too much respect for the humanities?

Also, why is there a subsection dedicated to Marx? I believe it is undue. No other theory of narrative-crafting received elaboration. If readers want to read about historical materialism, they should be able to do that by clicking a blue link in the first sentence two paragraphs earlier. I propose that this subsection be entirely removed, while that sentence could be expanded by maybe 5 words to namedrop the theory. Dieknon (talk) 20:44, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

I think you are missing the point of WP. WP Shouldn't be telling anyone what history should "be about". WP should be giving us the historical information, in this case the historical methods that have been used to write/talk about history. The section is warranted.

With that being said, I agree that Marx doesn't need it's own subsection, but can merely be a part of the overall section. I have been WP:BOLD and changed it. Vyselink (talk) 22:04, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

019938411639 2401:1900:155:FA4A:8043:47FF:FEAD:E571 (talk) 12:14, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

? 1250metersdeep (talk) 04:31, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Changes to the article

Generalissima and I were thinking about implementing changes to this article with the hope of moving it in the direction of GA status. The article currently has 5 unreferenced sections/subsections (e.g. History#Pseudohistory) and 4 unreferenced paragraphs in other sections. As first steps, we were planning to add a section on how history as a discipline evolved and to rework the sections "Areas of study" and "Methods". The article currently doesn't have a section on the evolution, which seems to be an oversight.

The current section "Areas of study" has 15 subsections with several subsubsections, which is too many. Maybe we can reduce them by using the major subdivisions "By period" (e.g. ancient history), "By geographic location" (e.g. history of Africa), "By theme" (e.g. economic history), and possibly a section called "Others" for branches that don't fit this division. The current section is also repetitive in several locations. For example, it explains two times what military history is. I also don't think we need repetitive explanations like History of North America is the study of the past passed down from generation to generation on the continent in the Earth's Northern and Western Hemispheres., History of Central America is the study of the past passed down from generation to generation on the continent in the Earth's Western Hemisphere., and History of South America is the study of the past passed down from generation to generation on the continent in the Earth's Southern and Western Hemispheres.

The current section "Methods" is a little odd. For some reason, it starts with universal history in the early modern period and then discusses methodological considerations in the ancient period and the following periods. I think the section should focus on the methods themselves rather than how they developed in the past. This could include discussions of the different types of sources, source analysis & criticism, how different sources are synthesized to arrive at a coherent narrative, and possibly what interpretative tools and approaches there are. This is also roughly how overview sources on the topic proceed, like [1], [2], and [3]. The details about the past development of the historical method could be moved to the article Historical method instead. Maybe they could be discussed in a paragraph or two here, but this should not be the main focus of the section.

We were hoping to get some feedback on these and possibly other changes. For a discussion with more details and improvement ideas, see User_talk:Phlsph7#Idea_for_collab_-_History. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:24, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I like the overall ideas that you have expressed here. If I may make a few suggestions?

Work on one section at a time. This will allow for easier comments on changes, rather than "I like this from this change, but the change you made here in this other section isn't good". It can get confusing to try to adjust to 1000's of words being changed at once over multiple areas of an article, especially one as large as this one. So start with say "Areas of Study", get a good groove and consensus building going on that, and when it seems like all that is left is tiny changes or cosmetic tune-ups, move to "Methods". You will be able to help avoid any knee-jerk "so much change at once can't be good!" reactions from editors.

To that end, regarding "Areas of Study", I agree that we don't need every type of history broken into their own subsections with an explanation. However, I would keep the main page links under the primary heading with a "Main articles" listing.

To me, a good "Areas of Study" outline would consist of that heading, with a quick explanation reading something like this

The study of history can be as all encompassing as a world history or as narrow as a single person or event at a particular time, such as The River of Doubt which focused on Theodore Roosevelt's expedition down an unmapped tributary of the Amazon river. It can be divided into different periods, geographical locations, cultural institutions, religious belief, economic or political power and many more. Given this nearly innumerable number of possibilities, the following briefly presents some of the largest areas of study, though by necessity it can not be a complete list of every subject or subset.

I would then follow that with subsections, with the few suggestions following being "Name of subsection" (what areas may fall under that, though it is not all-inclusive) though this of course would need to be discussed and hammered out: Geographical Locations (Americas, Eurasia); Period (ancient, medieval, etc); Societal (religious, cultural, gender, public); Political (military, economic, diplomatic); Other (intellectual, environmental). I am well aware that some people will argue that this belongs there or that belongs here, but we need a base to start from.

In an attempt to help, I have taken the liberty of rewriting the paragraph for "Geographical Locations", which you may use as little or as much as you wish, it is merely a suggestion. Add the appropriate links/sources. I would NOT include/link "History of North America; History of South America; History of Central America" etc. I would simply have the main pages of "History of Africa/Americas/Eurasia/Oceania/Antarctica" and people can link from those to what they may be looking for. As a side note, however you go about it, the Michelet quote is a GREAT quote which I would definitely keep:

Geographical locations, ranging from as broad as entire continents to as narrow as a small village or settlement, are often, though not always, the starting point for historical study, with factors such as weather patterns, the water supply, and the landscape of a place affecting the lives of the people who live there. According to Jules Michelet in his book Histoire de France (1833), "without geographical basis, the people, the makers of history, seem to be walking on air".[62] As an example of Michelet’s point, to explain why the ancient Egyptians developed a successful civilization necessitates an understanding of the geography of Egypt. Without knowing that the rich soil deposited by the Nile River’s yearly flooding allowed farmers to produce far more food than was needed for simple subsistence, which meant the excess could be shared and not everyone had to farm, the development of the civilization appears nearly miraculous. Once the Nile River’s flooding is understood, along with many other geographical advantages and disadvantages, the progression of the Egyptian culture and civilization becomes more transparent, allowing for a greater insight into how a civilization like Egypt developed as compared to another civilization in a different geographical location.

I have not edited much on WP recently, but this seems rather fun. I will attempt to stay in the loop as much as I can, and please feel free to message me should you have anything you'd like another opinion on. Vyselink (talk) 01:50, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello Vyselink and thanks for the feedback! That's a good idea about working on one section at a time. I've started a draft for the section "Methods" at User:Phlsph7/History - Methods. It's still a early version but I would be curious to hear your thoughts to ensure that it is going in the right direction.

I would probably focus on the section "Areas of Study" after that. Thanks for getting started with some initial drafts, I'll see how they can be included. How to divide the different branches is a tricky question. I think the division by periods and by geography should be uncontroversial. The difficult part would be how to structure the rest. Having everything under "By theme" could work but your suggestion of further subdividing it into different types of themes, like societal and political, might also be viable if we don't introduce controversial categorizations. When I get to it, I'll try to look through the sources to see if there are some established subdivisions. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:53, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I can't find a source that says the terms "ancient" etc. can be relative and be used to refer to different time periods in different cultures, for instance Mapungubwe and Empire of Kitara are called ancient in their respective societies (and by some academics). Anyways, I like your ideas. I assume a section on traditional oral history is outside the scope of this article if it is just on the academic discipline rather than the concept of history? Kowal2701 (talk) 08:52, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello Kowal2701 and thanks for the input! Having a main section on oral history probably violates WP:PROPORTION. I'm currently working on a draft of the section "Areas of study" (for an early work in progress, see User:Phlsph7/History - Areas of study) and I was planning to discuss oral history there, maybe between a couple of sentences to a paragraph. The point that the meaning of "ancient" depends on the context is good. I'll keep my eyes open in case I come across sources on this. It could be covered in a footnote somewhere. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:27, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, agreed a section would be inappropriate. In this context I recommend highlighting that it often has a different function to the academic discipline (including historical, social, and political functions), its communal nature as a group account, and its composites (eyewitness accounts, hearsay, reminiscences, hallucinations, dreams, and visions [4]), but you might rather imitate how a wideview source on history approaches it. That draft looks good!

• did Buddhism have a missionary tradition? I’ve not heard that before
• Does the source really say “undermining Western dominance” rather than European dominance, given unipolarity?
• Maybe mention the colonisation of Africa before “Various social revolutions” to link it into the sentences on industrialisation, and put “challenged autocratic and colonial regimes”

Kowal2701 (talk) 11:30, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Those are good ideas. I added a sentence on the colonial empires and adjusted the part on social revolutions. I'm not sure whether the phrase "undermining Western dominance" or "undermining European dominance" is better. The source, Stearns 2010 pp. 43–44, says: The issue is: what’s the big picture, in terms of themes that capture the most important directions in world history over the past century ... First – and this is where World War I comes in as launching the new period – power relationships have been rebalanced, against earlier Western predominance. Concerning Buddhist missions, Missionary#Buddhist_missions, [5], and [6] have some information. I guess Buddhist missionary practices are different from the missionary practicies people usually associate with Christianity and Islam. I'll try to implement the ideas on oral history once I come to that part. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:16, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I finished rewriting the section "Areas of study" and am considering a few more changes to the article. It might be good to add a "Definition" section to discuss the different meanings of the word "history", like the contrast between history as a series of events and history as the study or representation of these events. Additionally, this section could address history's classification as a science or part of the humanities as well as questions about its scope, like whether prehistory is included. For an early draft of what some of this could look like, see User:Phlsph7/History - Definition.

I don't think we should have separate main sections for "Pseudohistory" and "Historians" since these topics don't seem to be important enough. Both points can probably be covered in the section "Definition" in a sentence or two. It might also be good to cover the motivations for and uses of history, possibly as a paragraph or subsection within the section "Definition".

I was also thinking about a section to discuss the relation between history and other fields. It could have subsections like historiography (currently a separate main section), philosophy of history (currently only covered indirectly ), teaching/education (currently a separate main section), and possibly some of history's interdisciplinary connections (like archaeology and anthropology). The section "Teaching" should be more global and less focused on conflicts and biases. It could instead concentrate on things like curriculum and pedagogical approaches.

The topic of the section "Description" seems rather vague as it discusses bits and pieces of philosophy of history, sources, methods, the classification of history as a discipline, and its internal organization into branches. A lot of this is already covered in other sections and the remaining parts could also be moved to sections with a clearer focus. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:15, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Those ideas sound really good, I especially like the definitions section. Functions of history is also very good, and you can tie pseudohistory, revisionism, and nationalist history into that. Maybe a small subsection on popular consumption of history? Whether it’s books, lecture/teaching, documentaries/movies, oral performances etc. That might not be encyclopaedic enough though, and especially for such a broad topic. Kowal2701 (talk) 14:58, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree, it would make sense to connect the discussion of the functions of history with abuses in the form of pseudohistory. I'll look into the idea of popular consumption of history. At the very least, popular history could be mentioned. Phlsph7 (talk) 12:37, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I implemented the ideas on the sections "Definition" and "Relation to other fields". I had two more improvement ideas, which would probably result in smaller changes.

• The subsection "Historiography" is mostly based on a single self-published source (Culturahistorica.org). It probably fulfills the minimal requirements of WP:RS. However, there are many high-quality sources available so it might be better to base it on several of them and adjust the text to how they present the topic.
• The subsection "Etymology" is quite informative, but it seems to me too long and detailed for this overview article. I think it would be good to shorten it for the sake of concision to maybe half the length to focus only on the most important developments.

Phlsph7 (talk) 14:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

That looks really good, reads very naturally.

I'm very sceptical about the ===By period=== section, it seems more suited to World history (field)#Periodisation, and the sources are on World/Global history. It's a very challenging section to structure as periodisation is often dependent on region/theme and is difficult to discuss in isolation. Kowal2701 (talk) 16:46, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks again for reviewing the changes! I agree that periodization can be a challenging topic. The difficulty we face is that various sources talking about the different branches of history explicitly mention the division by periods, like Jordanova 2000 p. 34, Tosh 2002 pp. 108–109, and Veysey 1979 p. 1. So I think we can't ignore it.

You are right that most of the sources of this subsection are taken from world history. This is mainly my fault since I was already familiar with them from my work at the article Human history. For sources dedicated to a specific period without limiting themselves to a region or a theme, we could include sources like [7], [8], [9], [10], and [11], but it would take me some time to go through them. As an alternative solution, what do you think about adding a couple of sentences to the first paragraph to explain your point that depending on the region and the theme, historians may use other periodizations? Phlsph7 (talk) 18:03, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

That’s a good solution for now, but might be a point of contention for GA status Kowal2701 (talk) 18:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Your time is valuable so don’t worry. Ngl you’re like the perfect Wikipedian, thank you for your patience Kowal2701 (talk) 18:27, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words! I added a short discussion of alternative periodizations depending on region and theme. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:05, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

English variant

I think we need to do something about the English variant since the article currently mixes British English (analyse, artefact, labour) and American English (analyze, artifact, criticized). Fittingly, the article has both templates "Use American English" and "Use Oxford spelling". I usually default to American English unless there is a good reason otherwise but I don't feel strongly about this point. In any case, we should decide one way or the other. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:31, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

For the sake of consistency, I changed the English variant to American English throughout the article. I hope I didn't miss anything. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:03, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

The article, with the with the as far as I'm aware single exception of "Archaeology", did already consistently use Oxford spelling. I've reverted the spelling back. See my edit on 30 November 2024. Marginataen (talk) 12:09, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I think the key is consistency. I'm fine with the Oxford spelling. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:27, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

:) Marginataen (talk) 14:00, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

2409:4089:1D4D:9F47:0:0:7009:910B (talk) 15:34, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

I would prefer American English for the only reason that nearly 40% of English-WP readers are from the US in contrast to 9.5% from the UK according to wikimedia's own data (https://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/animations/wivivi/wivivi.html and click on the "Breakdown by country for English Wikipedia" button on the top left of the page), so for me on a general topic page (which History is) American English would be preferred. However via MOS:RETAIN, unless a consensus is made about changing it, Oxford is fine. As long as it is consistently Oxford via MOS:CONSISTENT. Vyselink (talk) 23:25, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Grammar edit in opening

"History is an academic discipline which uses a narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyse past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect."

Is the first part (History is an academic discipline) considered the complete idea of the sentence, and the information after considered additional 'non-essential' info? If so there should be a comma after discipline:

"History is an academic discipline, which uses a narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyse past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect."

If the whole sentence gives the complete definition of what History is, then should it not be:

"History is an academic discipline that uses a narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyse past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect."

Just based on restrictive vs. non-restrictive clauses in English grammar. Please be kind it's my first post :D ShiroKumamon (talk) 12:15, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello ShiroKumamon and welcome to Wikipedia! I think the restrictive use is meant here so I implemented your suggestion. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:51, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the welcome, Phlsph7 :) ShiroKumamon (talk) 14:08, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Some comments

This is a really good effort, but I have a few comments, which are not meant to derail or be awkward and may need rebutting. They are just thoughts but I hope can allow for a few changes to be made which I think would improve this article. I am very much aware that an enterprise on this scale needs to be succinct and highly selective, so, where I think something needs a mention, I really do mean a passing mention. I've got a lot of comments -- really sorry for the length -- and so I've put them under headings.

Purpose: subjectivities

I think there are a few issues with how the "purpose" section is framed. It currently includes this:

Various suggestions about the purpose or value of history have been made. Some historians propose that its primary function is the pure discovery of the truth about the past. This view emphasizes that the disinterested pursuit of truth is an end in itself, while external purposes, associated with ideology or politics, threaten to undermine the accuracy of historical research by distorting the past. In this role, history also challenges traditional myths lacking factual support.

Whilst many historians like Richard Evans in In Defence of History (which is not cited in this article, somewhat strangely, and probably ought to have its own article) would definitely agree that history is about the pursuit of an "objective" view of the past, there are many mainstream academic historians who would openly question what, if anything, constitutes a "historical fact" (including E. H. Carr, who I am surprised to see gets no mention in this article at all), and highlight the subjectivities inherent in any source (however seemingly objective) and indeed the subjectivity and positionality of every historian, regardless of their attempt at being impartial. The post-modern turn pushed this even further (as the article mentions elsewhere), and indeed it was this which prompted Evans's "defence".

While any good historian does seek to represent the past and uncover truth, I'd say most social or cultural historians today don't claim to be presenting an inherently "objective" view of the past owing to the subjective and biased nature of sources, and would probably take issue with the notion that there is one "truth" or even one "story" to tell; also, they are often at pains (sometimes to a fault) to put on record their own biases.

I reformulated the passage to not imply that there is one single truth and I added a corresponding footnote. Our current formulation says that this is one view among others, so I think we should be fine. The problem of subjectivity is discussed in other places in more detail, like the subsection "Philosophy". Phlsph7 (talk) 10:31, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, I've had a look and I notice that it's been reformulated again. The changes were an improvement but I think then placed sole emphasis on the relativist school, when it is quite contested. I've made some changes which I think better reflect the nature of the disagreements within the academy, based on a few top-level sources. --Noswall59 (talk) 11:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC).

You are right that this deserved a more detailed treatment. I moved the newly created subsection into the subsection "Philosophy of history" since it's more relevant there than in the "Definition" section. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:37, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

There is also this bit:

History is sometimes used for political or ideological purposes, for instance, to justify the status quo by making certain traditions appear respectable or to promote change by highlighting past injustices. Pushed to extreme forms, this can result in pseudohistory or historical denialism when evidence is intentionally ignored or misinterpreted to construct a misleading narrative serving external interests.

This is okay, but a great deal of profound historical scholarship has been born out of the writings of historians like Eric Hobsbawm and Joan Wallach Scott, who never pretended that their history-writing was anything other than inherently political (i.e., motivated by their own contemporary politics); while their interpretations are often controversial and contested, few would consider them as anything other than outstanding scholars. (And neither were, in their historical writings, explicitly trying to justify a regime).

(On an aside, some historians have even demonstrated the subjectivities inherent in the concept of time, e.g. Thompson's, "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism").

I reformulated the first sentence of the paragraph to not imply that this is intrinsically bad. But I think we also need to state that this can interfere with academic standards, which is covered by the second sentence. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:03, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I think you've better captured the nuance, though I notice you've also introduced a discussion of revisionism which to me seems quite disparaging: revisionism is a fairly normal, I'm not sure that this is fair: "revisionists generally seek to align history with a particular set of values, without adjusting their views as new evidence is introduced. Revisionist methodologies often incorporate intensely skeptical and relativist views to justify psuedohistorical perspectives". Revisionism in itself is a normal process of reinterpretation and critical analysis in which existing interpretations can be challenged, though taken to extreme forms and combined with bad methods this process can of course produce highly partial or pseudohistorical perspectives. --Noswall59 (talk) 11:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC).

I think this part was added by Generalissima. I'll ping them to make them aware of the discussion here: @Generalissima:. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:34, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I went ahead and modified the passage. It seems that some theorists use the term historical revisionism in a neutral sense while others associate negative connotations with it. I also moved the passage to a footnote to avoid getting too much into discussions of different meanings of words in the main text. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Purpose: studying evolution

On the question of purpose, Whig historians (needing a reference here?) and the Marxist scholar E. H. Carr (who I really think deserves a proper mention somewhere in here) both tend to view history's purpose as explaining how the world arrived where it is today -- not merely about trying to learn lessons from the past or uncover truth, but explain the historical progression of whatever society/period they study, often with a view to understanding how we emerged where we are. For Carr, this is a product of Marxism's teleological view of the past via dialectical materialism. This led Carr (in his foundational What Is History?) to critique things like counter-factual history and some scholars' tendencies to focus on the "losers" in history (which put him at odds with, e.g., another Marxist, E. P. Thompson).

I found a way to mention Carr and the whig historians in the paragraph discussing the lessons from history. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:31, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

that's good, though I think this is such a crucial perspective that I've expanded out the footnote into a sentence. --Noswall59 (talk) 11:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC).

Spatial dimensions to scholarship

Under "Areas of study", we have "by geography", but this is a list of continental histories. Fine, but I think what we need somewhere in this article is a sentence or two (or perhaps a paragraph) explaining that historical scholarship works in different spatial dimensions, from global history, to transnational history, to national, regional, local and micro histories. There are also histories of ethnic groups, classes, religions, communities, and families, and of course biography, though most of these get a shout out except for family history, which is a shame.

This is discussed in a later subsection in the paragraph starting with "Some distinctions focus on the scope of the studied". I added a few of these examples. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:10, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Excellent --Noswall59 (talk) 11:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC).

Material culture

While it is true that material culture is often associated with archaeology, many historians engage with it more extensively than I think is recognised in this article. See, e.g., https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/28036. Arguably, it forms a key part of architectural history, which is not mentioned either.

I expanded the discussion of archaeology, which was suggested by another editor earlier, and mentioned material culture there as well. The introductory chapter of the source you mentioned was quite helpful for this. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:31, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

thanks --Noswall59 (talk) 11:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC).

Memory

The word "memory" doesn't appear in this article, which is quite surprising. Whilst I understand it is a different concept and was until the 20th century not considered relevant to historical study, memory studies have been hugely influential in the academy recently. This is partly linked to scholarship on the Holocaust (another event which is, I think, also missing, quite astonishingly). There are journals like History & Memory and Memory Studies which relate to this, books like Cubbitt's History and Memory (2007) and Tumblety's Memory and History: Understanding Memory as Source and Subject (2013), and universities teach undergraduate modules exploring this link (e.g., [1]).

This is probably most relevant to oral history. I adjusted the corresponding passage to focus more on this aspect of it. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:10, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. --Noswall59 (talk) 11:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC).

Antiquarianism v. history

There is no mention of antiquarianism, despite the role that the antiquarian had in the development of history over many centuries. Today, antiquarianism is often contrasted disparagingly with academic history, and this distinction might be worth mentioning.

I included it instead as a forerunner of archaeology in the expansion mentioned above. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:31, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Nice. --Noswall59 (talk) 11:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC).

Psychology and psychohistory

There is some mention of psychology being brought into history in the Annales school, but I'd say the influence of psychological thinking (especially through Michel Foucault) on some fields has been experienced in profound ways which extend beyond the Annales school, which (in its focus on geography) had little to do with Foucault's approach as far as I know. In recent decades, psychohistory has emerged, and today the Regius Chair of History at Oxford (one of the most prestigious positions in the Western academy) is a pyschohistorian, Lyndal Roper.

I'm not sure that Psychohistory is important enough and the overview sources that I'm aware of are quite critical of it. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:10, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

it is controversial certainly. If it's not coming up in your sources, then I suppose it can be omitted --Noswall59 (talk) 11:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC).

History as oral tradition

In many cultures around the world today, history is still largely an oral tradition -- whilst modern scholarship focuses on textual sources or oral history techniques, should there not be some mention of these other traditions?

It is currently covered briefly in several places in the article, including the sections "Others", "Education", and "Evolution of the discipline". Phlsph7 (talk) 18:10, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

History as ritual, commodity and consumption

I wonder if we need something here about how people link to the past in contemporary society through engaging with history. I'm minded of this book: Restaging the Past: Historical Pageants, Culture and Society in Modern Britain (2020). This book is far too niche for citing here, but I think there might be something more generally that can be said, tied with memory, about history as a public performance, ritual or commodity, used often to further contemporary political positions, create linkages with the past, and performatively identify with places/communities or publicly reinforce these identities; I'm also thinking of Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger's seminal The Invention of Tradition (1992) regarding the social construction of such things. I'm not sure exactly what this looks like in this article, perhaps something like "history as ritual" or "history and commemoration"?

Finally, today, history is also something that is consumed, through popular media, TV, cheap books, social media and online communities. There is also "heritage", heritage studies and specifically the heritage industry, the latter related to tourism and what I've seen called "museumification" (some interesting books, but there may be better ones: [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17]). Heritage tourism is often contested and (sometimes) colonial in nature. I wonder if this can be mentioned here, if not already? There is also historical reenactment, which blends history as education, performance, community and spectacle.

I guess this would fall under public history and popular history, which are currently covered in the sections "Others" and "Education". I'm not sure if these discussions should be expanded. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:10, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I see, I hadn't spotted that section before. I do wonder if we could add a sentence at the end of that one saying something like "The heritage industry, including heritage tourism, is globally worth $x, while x many history books are published annually, worth $x." That might be a useful way of highlighting popular engagement with the subject, if sourcing can be found. --Noswall59 (talk) 11:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I mentioned heritage tourism in relation to public history. I think we would need a source to support that comparing these figures results in a valid and relevant comparison. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:18, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Apologies again for the length, but hopefully these comments might prompt some interesting thoughts and revisions... Thanks again for this excellent work. --Noswall59 (talk) 19:48, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello Noswall59 and thanks for all the helpful suggestions! I responded to some above and I'll tackle the others later. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:31, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:History/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Phlsph7 (talk · contribs) 09:13, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 15:32, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Kudos for taking on such a big beast -- a strong team of editors to do so. Some comments below. I'll have a think about how best to conduct this -- probably wise to stick fairly strictly to the GA criteria template, once the image and source reviews are sorted. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:32, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello UndercoverClassicist and thanks for reviewing this challenging article! I'm used to waiting months before a review even starts so I'm pleasantly surprised that things are moving faster this time. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:52, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

• On first read, my big discomfort is with the chronological range put forward here. Someone calling themself a "historian", as a rule, would not generally specialise in very early prehistory -- in particular, pre sapiens hominids. Of the three sources we've got to support note 8, which says that the modern conception of history includes prehistory to human origins, I've checked the two with links, and neither explicitly supports that statement. They do mention that the human story starts very early indeed, but that's different from saying that this part of the story is the domain of historians. Similarly, the notes on "Big History" are both cited to a single children's book, which doesn't give me huge confidence that there exists a defined and established field of academic study equally at home with planetary formation and the Treaty of Versailles.

  I guess the study of prehistory is an interdisciplinary field. In this regard, you are right that someone who studies prehistory is not automatically a historian. But historians are among the people studying prehistory, including deep history. From Stearns 2010, p. 17: All comprehensive world histories start well before ... the arrival of writing, Ackermann et al. 2008 covers the "Prehistoric Eras to 600 CE", and Volume 1 of the The Cambridge World History is dedicated to the world prior to 10,000 BCE. I reformulated the sentence to indicate that historians are interested in this period without implying that they are main researchers here.

  I don't think that the book on Big History is a children's book. I added another source on Big History published by Cambridge University Press. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:24, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

  I think you're right that the Big History book isn't a children's book (though DK often publishes for children), but it's certainly not a particularly scholarly source. Not a major problem for GAN, and sniffing around I can see enough articles and books that at least want to present it as a serious sub-field, though I must admit I still need a bit of convincing that it is considered one with enough weight to include at such a high level in a Wikipedia article. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 18:14, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

  I honestly think the Hesketh source, published by Cambridge, works good enough for our purposes here. I added some more context in the footnote that mentions Big History, and stripped the other mention down to the intro from Hesketh. Because I feel that might be putting a bit too much emphasis on what is a relatively niche subfield of history, I changed the image to talk about world history, which I think is a more common lense of analysis.(Oh, hi, btw I'm the co-nominator here. Kind of) Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 22:38, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

  I agree, having an image on world history instead is better. The footnote is not essential so we could remove it if it is still an issue. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:37, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

  Yes: I'm much happier that world history/macrohistory/world-systems analysis is a defined and major field of study, with a clear intellectual history, identifiable figures and thinkers, and so on. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:16, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

• History contrasts with pseudohistory...: reading this section, I get the impression that there exist people who define themselves within the discipline of "pseudohistory", which has clear research methodologies, professorships and so on. It might be worth slightly recasting this bit to be clear that all of these people call themselves historians, and that "pseudohistory" is an exonym we apply to people we consider to be doing it wrong (like "pseudoscience").

  Reformulated to clarify that this is a label. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:11, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

• Note d ("It is controversial to what extent there is a single objective truth in history") is a great exercise in understatement: I worry that it may be skirting so lightly over such a big question as to be of little use.
  • I upgraded this footnote into a full paragraph, as I feel it's a pretty important question (and there's lots of sourcing for it) - I also added a paragraph about historical revisionism and denialism. - G
    • We have another paragraph on subjectivity and objectivity in the subsection "Philosophy", starting with A philosophical topic regarding historical research is the possibility of an objective account. What do you think about merging the paragraph you just added (starting with It is controversial to what extent historical objectivity exists) into that paragraph? I think it fits better in the context of philosophy than the context of the purpose of history and we avoid redundancy. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:33, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
    • I went ahead with the proposal, it's now in a separate subsubsection in the subsection "Philosophy of history". Phlsph7 (talk) 17:33, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
• On the Herodotus papyrus: I would be tempted to give a slightly clearer caption (that fragment is C2nd CE and from Egypt). The the is an addition to the title rather than part of it: suggest the Histories.
  • Rephrased this. - G
• The prose is sometimes a little choppy: see History is a wide field of inquiry encompassing many branches. Some branches focus on a specific time period. Others concentrate on a particular geographic region or a distinct theme. Specializations of different types can usually be combined..
  • I went through and dechoppified some of the text. - G
• For topics with a broad scope, the amount of primary sources is often too extensive for an individual historian to review. This forces them to either narrow the scope of their topic or rely on secondary sources to arrive at a wide overview.: this is quite confusing given that we haven't yet discussed what a primary and a secondary source are, for the purposes of historians. I wonder whether it would be better to move the "methods" section further up? This would also meant hat we introduce the concept of periodisation before actually engaging in it.
  • This is a good idea - I moved the methods section up. - G
• The "By Period" subsection seems to have changed the tone of the article -- previously, we seemed to be discussing the study of the past; now we're actually writing a potted history of the world. To keep consistency of tone, it might be better to write e.g. "Ancient historians study ...", "medieval historians study ...", and use that as an opportunity to talk about some of the blurs in this periodisation (ancient/early medieval/late antique, for example). This continues in the "By geographical location" section, though goes back to "normal" in the theme section. Another approach might be to pull these first two subsections out into another section, called "outline of world history" or similar? I note that the hatnote says that this article is about the academic discipline, and that readers looking for an outline of human history should go elsewhere.
  • This was also a point I was struggling with and I'm not sure there is an ideal solution. I think it would be odd to have an article on history that does not include a minimal outline of what happened in the past. The current location is probably the most intuitive and unintrusive place for this outline. I followed your first suggestion and changed the tone. Various issues surrounding periodization are discussed in the first paragraph of the subsection "By period", both in the text and in a footnote. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:26, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
• A small MoS thing, but in general, don't put people's dates in prose text after their first mention (MOS:BIO).
  • I hope I got all. Please let me know in case I missed something. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:34, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
• The chronology on historical movements seems a little confusing: we discuss postcolonialism, which really emerged in the 1960s, before Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. I'm surprised not to see modern China on that list, especially given one of the nominators' expertise in Chinese archaeology.
  • I'm doing a rewrite on the historical evolution portion - this should be finished within the next couple days. - G
  • In the meantime, I fixed the chronology. Woolf 2019 has separate sections for China in the chapters on earlier periods but not in the later ones covering the 19th and 20th centuries. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:31, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
• I'll try not to do too many nitpicks, but do give the bibliography a look for formatting: spaces after abbreviated names ("J. R. R. Tolkien"), capitals on CE and BCE, consistent use of title case.
  • Went through and tried to make things consistently formatted. - G

Image review and spotchecks to follow. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:32, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Image review

Alt texts and captions look good (strictly, we should remove the dates from Bloch and Febvre, per MOS:BIO). As there's a lot of images, I'll comment only when there's something to address:

• File:POxy v0017 n2099 a 01 hires.jpg: the licensing isn't right here. We need to demonstrate PD twice -- first that the scroll is PD (trivial); second that the photograph is PD. The link to the source is dead and the photograph clearly isn't new enough to be automatically PD, unless released by its author. If the image were cropped to show only the papyrus, PD-Art could perhaps be used.

  I added the tags {{PD-Scan|PD-old-100}}{{PD-US-expired}}. I don't think the presence of the scale on right side is an issue here, but I can upload cropped version if you think otherwise. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:49, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

  I think it is a problem, since it's fairly universally established that adding e.g. a frame is a creative act, and therefore generates a new copyright on the photograph. Unless we can show that the photograph has been released under a suitable CC license, we need to crop it such that there's nothing copyrightable in it, beyond the papyrus which we can show to be PD. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:29, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

  Done. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:02, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

• File:Marc Bloch.jpg needs a US PD tag.
• As does File:Lucien Febvre-Strasbourg.jpg

  I'm not sure which US tags they need so I asked here. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:49, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

  I replaced the images. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:10, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

• File:Australopithecus afarensis AL 288-1 Lucy Wien 18.07.19 JM.jpg has rather complicated licensing: I'm not sure that the conditions stipulated on its page are compatible with use on Wikipedia, which requires anyone to be able to use our content without credit or conditions. Equally, I'm not convinced that they're entirely compatible with being on Commons, either.

  I used a different image. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:49, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

• File:Trébuchet Castelnaud.jpg: France doesn't have panorama, but equally I'm not sure a trebuchet counts as a work of art, so I think this one is fine.
• File:Map of the World (1820).jpg needs a PD tag for the original work as well as the scan. The CC license should also be removed: scanning doesn't create a new copyright, which means you can't release your rights, because you don't have any to begin with.

  I changed the license tags to {{PD-Scan|PD-old-100}}{{PD-US-expired}}. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:49, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

• File:Tokyo National Museum Toyokan P1145505.jpg: Japan doesn't have freedom of panorama, but I think this is fine, as nothing in the image would seem to be a creative work of the museum or a modern artist.

I'm calling the image review a pass: there's some ambiguity in the Freedom of Panorama rules for Mexico, but I think they're above our pay grade as they apply here, and I'm satisfied that there's at least a strong argument that the Lucy image is fine under them. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:35, 11 February 2025 (UTC)